During a recent appearance on the “You Know I’m Right” podcast, former TNA World Champion Joe Hendry was asked which wrestlers he’d choose for a stable under his leadership. Hendry revealed that he already has a behind-the-scenes crew of close friends informally known as “The Commonwealth,” which includes himself, KC Navarro, Mike Bailey, and others.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his dream wrestling stable, “The Commonwealth”: “Well that’s that’s easy, we have we have our own here in TNA wrestling, behind the scenes. So it’s originally it was called The Commonwealth because there was a big group of us who were hanging out and like 90 percent of us were from Commonwealth countries. So it was like Canadians, Scots, people from England and Europe. Like there was a whole bunch of us who just happened to congregate together. So we called ourselves the Commonwealth.”
On who the core members of the group are: “Right now our core members is it’s, actually now we do have an honorary American. So we’ve got.. it’s me. We’ve got (George) Iceman. We’ve got Leon Slater. We’ve got KC Navarro, and Jake Something is now, he’s come back to taping. So he might be ready to come back. But yeah, we had Mike Bailey was part of our crew. Trent Seven was part of our crew. We, you know, it was a good bunch. Nice, nice crew out there for sure.”
During a recent appearance on the “Monte & The Pharaoh” podcast, AEW and ROH star Rachael Ellering responded to criticism aimed at AEW and ROH talents who choose not to take independent wrestling bookings, despite not being regularly featured on television.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On AEW and ROH talents needing to get their indie dates approved: “I myself feel like in the last year or two, I’ve lost a step working so infrequently, and being under contract, that’s such a tricky thing because technically, we can take independent bookings. You have to get them approved. They can’t clash with any shows or travel that you have as a contracted talent.”
On the potential risk of getting hurt at outside shows: “But then there’s also that risk of if you do that and you get hurt on the independent show, you’ve really put yourself in a corner, right? And so it’s such a challenge and like you said, it’s hard to find good, reputable, safe schools that have a good ring, good people to train with that have good intentions.”
On fans criticism for not working more indie shows if they’re not getting booked on TV: And I know that’s a big hold-up for a lot of us AEW, Ring of Honor talent… Again, back to fan comments online but, all the time, people, ‘Well, if they’re upset they’re not booked on TV, go work a bunch of indie shows,’ and it’s like, yes, the principle of that is right. Your heart is in the right place I suppose *Laughs*. But it’s definitely not as easy as just, well, let me just go get on a couple of local shows where the board’s broken in the middle of a ring and the ropes are really wobbly and there’s no mats outside of the ring, it’s not clean.”
On how you could be working with less experienced wrestlers: “You’re working with someone who’s a month into training that only knows how to do a tackle and so, there’s a lot that goes into, okay, I’ll work this show, I know who I’m working with. It’s a promoter I trust that I can work with and I’ll be safe and taken care of because a lot of places, that’s not the situation, right? A lot of wrestling schools, that’s not the situation. You’re not always in there with someone who should even be training, like considering themselves a trainer, and so, you have to really pick and choose your spots as they say and try to get the reps in when you can, try to improve on the things you can control.”
NOTE: If you have any news tips or podcast recaps that you’d like to send in for us to post (full credit will be given to you), please email me at [email protected].
